On The Road Again

A spate of Levi&#x2019;s &#x201C;Go Forth&#x201C; commercials has been blanketing our TV screens for a few months now. Produced by "Just Do It" ad team Wieden+Kennedy and shot by hyped art-world wunderkind Ryan McGinley, the spots feature McGinley’s free-spirited, clothing-optional aesthetic, set to the poetry of Walt Whitman. But when the company wanted to translate that pioneer-like vibe to their hometown flagship store, they hired a different kind of specialist: former Rogues Gallery road dog and vintage-Americana expert Jay Carroll, who brought archaeologist/photographer Nate Bressler along on a journey across the nation’s highways, from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco.

Carroll spent a month scouring vintage clothing warehouses, drugstores, estate sales, antique stores, and old mercantile shops, buying up everything from Steve McQueen-esque windbreakers to bird calls, harmonicas, Pendleton blankets, ancient Kromer caps, old flags, and wooden yo-yos; Bressler captured the road’s odd characters and wide open spaces with his camera. The result—One Trip Pass: Stars and Stripes, equal parts art gallery and well-curated curiosity shop—is now open for business within the Levi&#x2019;s Union Square store in San Francisco.

Carroll&#x2019;s inaugural One Trip Pass vintage collection, culled from an earlier ramble through Joshua Tree and the American Southwest, was featured in the parlor of Billy Reid&#x2019;s New York store this past May—and much as with that project, pretty much everything you’ll find here is for sale. (Alas—not the original 501 jean, which is merely on display.) Just behind the surface of Bressler&#x2019;s photos and Carroll&#x2019;s finds, though, is a new American Dream for our new times: getting paid to go on a cross-country road trip with your buddy, hanging out with rodeo queens and cowboys, shotgunning beers all night with rural Louisiana water-ski jumpers (check out the photos below), and buying up cool one-of-a-kind stuff on somebody else&#x2019;s dime. It ain’t poetry, but it ain’t bad.

Stars and Stripes: One Trip Pass for Levi&#x2019;s San Francisco, now through the holidays at the Union Square store, 300 Post Street, San Francisco, Calif.; (415) 501-0100

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